Yeast Culturing

[discoloop]

We all know a yeast starter can be cultured up from a bottle of Coopers, but what other beers are good for this? Any other Australian beers? Little Creatures?

 

[The King of Spain]

For what its worth I advocate buying a good yeast. Its just one more thing that you know you will have under control. I've fluffed around with cultivating yeast but never know if I've under pitched etc.

You can get a twin pack of a good yeast like us56 from Craftbrewer for about $7 so why bother....

Cheers

 

[Kai]

You have as much chance of knowing you've underpitched with a home-grown commercial culture as you do with a wyeast smack pack or whitelabs vial.

Coopers yeast has often been a mainstay of mine in past, but if you're not careful it can throw up a lot of caramel or banana. Diacetyl has often been a problem with the yeast especially while bottle conditioning. Unfortunately don't know much about other aussie beers. There are plenty of imports that you can culture good yeast from, but the list is confusing and complex, and the older the beer gets the harder it is to cultivate the yeast successfully. Things are complicated by the habit of filtering out primary yeast and adding a bottling strain.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I'm trying to culture some Chimay at the moment, but think I am failing.

It's expensive to buy liquid yeast, but perhaps the people who suggested getting into a yeast swap arrangement are closer the mark?

 

[Stuster]

Another option is the Xmas case beers. I've cultured up quite a few yeasts from the dregs of the beers from the cases. But it's really important to make sure they have fired up clean before you pitch them or you can spoil a batch. Don't ask how I know.

Chimay might well be difficult. You don't know how long ago it was made, what temps it went through etc.

 

[///]

Yeast Culturing also includes top cropping (skiming) for ales and bottom cropping for lagers.

Seriously, if you pay $15-20 bucks for a quality liquid yeast and you cannot re-use 5-10 times you are not doing things right. Better to recapture from a healthy ferment than an old bottle - an infected batch is worth how much? (ie. from weak yeast and a slow take off from poor yeast collections)

Ales are so easy to skim and inoculate I am unsure why you would quibble about the cost of a culture? Maybe thats the yeast importer in me i dunno??

Scotty

 

[Kai]

5-10 brews is a big investment. An established brewer will happily do that, but someone new to the game won't.

And shouldn't that be $10-15?

 

[TidalPete]

5-10 brews is a big investment. An established brewer will happily do that, but someone new to the game won't.

And shouldn't that be $10-15?

Around $18 up our way kai.
Anyway, theoretically, if you split the initial Wyeast pack into 10 & after each fermentation farmed each one of those into another 10, that is 100 starters for your $18 --- More than you will ever use of that particular yeast. And that's only 2nd generation.

Used to cultivate Coopers but don't bother any more.

:beer:

 

[bconnery]

If you have the equipment and technique to culture a yeast, then you have the same to resuse a liquid.

5-10 is a big investment but reusing a liquid even 3-4 times, and don't forget this can be done over time, reduce the cost down to a decent enough level.

I'm lazy most of the time so I just look to get 2-3 reuses by pitching onto yeast cake. It means a little planning in terms of what I'm brewing but I spend far too much time doing that anyway so it's not that big a difference

I use both liquid, when I want something particular and dry the majority of the time. I tend not to reuse dry, because they are fairly cheap, with the exception of Nottingham which is excellent for resuse. Just don't use all the yeast cake because apparently it can lead to airlocks full of gunk...

EDIT: On the other hand there's a guy at the club I visit who reuses his yeast over and over and over and over. I'm talking one yeast for literally dozens of brews and then eventually gets around to getting a new yeast from someone... So that would make it really cheap for a liquid!!

 

[bconnery]

Around $18 up our way kai.
Anyway, theoretically, if you split the initial Wyeast pack into 10 & after each fermentation farmed each one of those into another 10, that is 100 starters for your $18 --- More than you will ever use of that particular yeast. And that's only 2nd generation.

Used to cultivate Coopers but don't bother any more.

:beer:

Have you looked to Mashmaster Tidal? I know postage is still a factor but his initial yeast costs are only 12 or so...

 

[TidalPete]

Have you looked to Mashmaster Tidal? I know postage is still a factor but his initial yeast costs are only 12 or so...

Thanks for that bconnery. I plan to get a couple of White Labs yeasts when I get around to it but have a big enough yeast bank at the moment.

:beer:

 

[shamus]

Can we get back on track? I was about to start a new thread but then searched and found this one. What commercial beers can you culture yeast from?

 

[neonmeate]

What commercial beers can you culture yeast from?

off the top of my head, yeasts that have worked for me out of bottles:

coopers (sparkling as well as vintage)
hen's tooth
orval
rochefort 10
la chouffe
maisels weisse
schneider weisse
saison dupont


yeasts that bombed:
lucifer
kwak (got halfway through and gave up)
mountain goat hightail (perhaps an old bottle?)
little creatures (only found out it was a lager yeast later)
hoegaarden (i know it has worked for others but it was weak and threw up a lot of sulfur for me)
gales jubilee ale (it was 12% and 5 years old, what did i expect)

there have been numerous other failures i forget which ones.
it can be a fun way to get yeast (especially strains that arent otherwise available) but it's a bit of a diceroll. you usually get crap esters out of cultured yeast, even when it ferments through to a decent FG.

 

[pint of lager]

Neonmate, that is a very impressive list of successes and failures.

With your successes, did you keep notes as to fermentation temp, styles and any flavours contributed by the yeasts?

 

[neonmeate]

Neonmate, that is a very impressive list of successes and failures.

With your successes, did you keep notes as to fermentation temp, styles and any flavours contributed by the yeasts?

yes i do have all the notes on temps, gravities, aeration, tasting notes, they're all scrawled inside the covers of my beerbooks over the years. unfortunately i havent kept notes of all the failures! i have tried a lot of beers that have just flopped - then again sometimes i just don't have the patience when it hasnt started up after a few days. (sometimes they only get going in a week). stirplating and microscopes would be the ideal way to go for the yeast piracy caper but i haven't got that geeky - yet.

oh and liefmans goudenband didnt work either (again probably the bottle was too old). and duvel didnt work for me (but have heard it has for others).

 

[lucas]

Have you looked to Mashmaster Tidal? I know postage is still a factor but his initial yeast costs are only 12 or so...

sorry to go back off topic again, but I just had a look at the mashmaster site and it looks like he's stopped restocking liquid yeast. down to only 6 products now and one of them is the ice packs for postage

 

[shamus]

has anyone recultured Little creatures Pale Ale conditioning yeast? apparently they add new yeast at bottling stage and it "cleans up the beer taking away harsh green flavours"

 

[3GumsBrewing]

Ok guys, here is a noob question for you - how exactly do you make a yeast starter / culture yeast from ...say a Chimay Blue?

Only asking because a recent thread peaked my interest and I have only used packet or liquid yeast before.

The pros for culturing from the bottle for me look like - cost and I get to drink a blue before I make 19L of my own!

Cheers
DK

 

[3GumsBrewing]

Have a look at the following link := http://www.grumpys.com.au/m1.php3?manualid=11

That link is brilliant, just what I was after. Thanks for that.

Cheers
DK